Monday, May 7, 2018

At the front end of designing your garden there's a common halting point. Language. No words to describe the form, function, style, flow, Nature, abiding your life to house to garden, and etc. There are layers of meaning in what is lost. A trinity of margins listed, above. Life happens in the margins.
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Somehow, that language is in your soul's DNA. Once heard, immediately, "Of course."
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Several generations of Americans have grown up with foundation plantings needing harsh pruning, lawns needing toxic fertilizers/chemicals, annuals swapped 2x/year, put it on contract, mow/blow/go.
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Back to language.
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What Garden Design language do you see, below?
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Made me smile seeing this pic. Have seen 100's of gardens designed in this manner. Humble cottage, to manor born.
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If you had to label this Garden Design, below, what are your labels? No worries, it's your head/heart, and those labels may be far better than mine.

Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design, above, Gravel to the House, Formal, Wildwood. Margins at house to garden, gravel to formal, formal to woodland.
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A trinity of Garden Design styles, a trinity of margins. Where margins meet, pop.
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Beyond intuiting classic Garden Design, above, decades ago, I was a slow learner about its true depth of purpose. Do you know what I'm about to say about this style? Go you, hope you do, Earth is a better place for you knowing it. And I'd adore knowing how you learned it, intuited it, how old you were at the time.
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Classic Garden Design, above, is also designed for maximum pollinator habitat, Wildwood next to open meadow.
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House & Garden are one, Vanishing Threshold.
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Another value to Classic Garden Design? No toxic fertilizers/chemicals, less maintenance, lower HVAC expense, increased property value.
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Ironically, classically designed gardens are unique in every permutation. Guaranteed.
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More, classically designed gardens are 'fast' to 'show'. Instead of a decade, or more, classically design gardens are felt/seen upon completion of gravel, planting, etc.
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Sustainable, eco, organic, pollinator habitat, potager for yard to house, and other buzzwords, each contained, inherently, in Classically Designed Gardens.
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Classically Designed Gardens are Today's Modern.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Already spot Virginia Woolf, above ? Cannot count the times I've read, To the Lighthouse. Look forward to reading it many times more.
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Decades gardening classically, a new layer was reached, without anticipation, once I got chickens, 8 heirloom chickens. I scoop their poop from the coop daily, and toss around plant margins, not atop the roots. Cannot imagine, decades missing out on this. No regrets, at least I know it now.
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Once Chickens arrived to my garden I also gained a gift, a change in perspective, away from merely 'gardening' to one of Stewardship. The honor of Stewardship. Washing of the servant's feet.
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The door of Stewardship is all encompassing. In every good way.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Monday, October 13, 2014

At a jobsite last week, below, a stone path on a slight slope with a slight curve.

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The man creating this path is a stone whisperer.

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His lead stone says, 'Welcome.', with, secondary stone saying, with great nuance, 'Turn this way.'

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Stones are not set in mortar. Yet, solid, stable, and rank as art. William Morris, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

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In nuance is the metaphor.

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The fallen branch, below, Nature hard at work, boldly flinging bright white, fungi. Most people never achieve the beauty of this fungi, nor courage in mission. Doing the next-right-thing is, too often, hard, until it's the easiest choice available. My best teachers are in my garden, the nuance of allowing Nature to speak.

Cannot imagine my tiny cottage garden without it's formal stone terraces, clipped boxwood, conservatory, and more, not having its Wildwood. Earth's path with Providence playing the leading role.

Michael Dirr said, "Of all the trees in the forest, oaks have the wildest sex."

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Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

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Oak seedling, below.

I specialize in Le Jardin Rustique. More than nuance, they are gardens giving far more than they ever demand.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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All pics taken last week. No idea how the bottom pic did the 'swirl thing', nor why it perfectly targets the oak seedling. Providence or accident? You know my answer !
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

.

Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

.

Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

.

Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

.

Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

.

Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Her chair faces the front yard. My job is to take an adequate landscape and turn it into a multi-layered narrative more deeply entwined with stewardship than amusement. Though amusement will still play a role. A role we give to it, deeper/richer than assigned by society 'norms'.

What I will add to this landscape?
.Engagement. I want to deeply engage 'her', more than her sons.Everyday, wanting her to see something stunning, she glances, and thinks, 'wow'. With blooms, berries, fruits, burgeoning of spring, perceptions of senescence, humus of fall, colors, paths, focal points, textures, repetitions, historical ties, fragrance, birds, possums, coons, squirrels, deer, insects, sounds of wind through foliage, intricacies of good soil and its productions for our survival, outdoor classrooms serendipitously appearing, outdoor classrooms created as destinations, unstudied playgrounds imagined by her and the boys at a whim, playground areas created for myriad games, beautiful landscape areas demanding an impromptu picnic, landscaped area created for a harvest table & dining or studying classwork, a pizza oven, a Peter Pan Express created from the indoor kitchen to their outdoor kitchen downstairs (ropes/pulley/wire basket), a cluster of bushes with an interior secret place for the boys to have a hobbit hole, strands of Italian piazza lights in a couple of places, a place for her to read/absorb the philosophy/poetry/essays of Wendell Berry, when it snows I want her to feel like her indoor classroom is a magical snow globe, a garden of epiphanies, a garden of stewardship more than amusement, a garden that needs her boys, a garden that provides more stewardship to her than she does to it, and so very much more.
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Many of the plants will have a large river stone, about 3 pounds, at their base, with Latin and common names written in grease pencil. Instead of mulch the garden will have groundcovers, no nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium fertilizers will be used to poison the groundwater, amongst her dense shade a sunny enough spot must be found for a pear tree, new plantings will be added for the landscape to have something coming into bloom/color/berry every 2 weeks, a compost pile will be created, potager in pots on the deck where it is sunny and the boys learn agricultural yields are increased by the ornamental landscape surrounding it, and etc.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic shot at jobsite last week. Will draw their landscape this week.
.Help, what else does her garden need?
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

.

Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

.

Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

.

Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

.

Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

.

Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.